Are you a workaholic? Your dream suggests you’re ready to rehabilitate yourself from an addiction, and it looks like an addiction to work.
Everyone in a dream represents something about you, so that patient you feared would get you into trouble for not going to work represents your attitude towards NOT working. Let’s put this another way: there’s a part of you that thinks it’s wrong not to go to work, and you fear that part of you. You fear it so much that you think you’ll “get into trouble”.
Well, that’s quite an insight already. You’re addicted to working hard because you’re afraid that you’ll “get into trouble” if you slacken off, if you “skulk around” instead of working.
Think back to your past. Who accused you of “skulking around”? A parent, teacher, or someone you were once in relationship with perhaps? Have you spent many years working hard as if to prove something to this person? If so, there’s a part of you that has taken on this belief, a part that thinks it’s wrong to skulk around instead of going to work.
The things we do for fear! The things we do for fear of trouble! What trouble have you been working hard to avoid all these years? What have you not had to face because you’ve been busy working instead?
Addictions are habits we do because they make us feel good – usually temporarily. Addictions are also habits we do to avoid feeling bad. What good feeling do you get from working? Where, in the rest of your life, is that same good feeling missing? What has working hard compensated for? Has it compensated for ‘trouble’ – or feeling bad - in other areas of your life?
There’s a lack of responsibility at the end of your dream where you want to turn to an authority figure – your therapist – to protect you and keep you out of trouble. You obviously still believe in getting into trouble for not working! These are the keys, the issues you need to explore – your beliefs that taking time out from working hard is ‘skulking around’, your beliefs that taking time out from work will get you into trouble, and your beliefs that the trouble you are trying to avoid by working hard is not your responsibility.
Of course that dream therapist also represents a part of you, a part that CAN keep you out of trouble, a part that you CAN dialogue with to discover ways of keeping you out of trouble. And what advice would a therapist give? A good therapist would advise you to take responsibility for your beliefs and actions, to be active rather than passive.
You have written up your dream using passive language: “be rehabilitated”, “get into trouble”, “not going to work” “keep me out of trouble”. These are mostly actions done to you: rehabilitation was going to be done to you, regardless of any input from you; you were going to get into trouble, regardless of your thoughts on the matter; you wanted someone else to ‘do’ keeping you out of trouble. “Not going to work” is also passive, as the active choice would be “taking a day off”.
So your dream report reveals a passive attitude, at least beyond your world of work. Think about the kind of trouble you are trying to avoid facing by working hard, and consider actively taking responsibility and doing something about this, instead of passively avoiding it.
Consult me confidentially about your dream.
Discover more by doing a Dream Alchemy dialogue with the patient in the hall.
You: “What are you doing here?”
Patient: “...let patient reply here”
You: “… continue in this way”
Patient: “... continue in this way ”
How to do this
Give yourself no longer than 20 minutes. When you do this exercise do NOT think! Don’t plan ahead. Just let whatever happens happen. Let the two entities speak to each other on paper using whatever words come up. It’s a bit like writing a film script or play – but without the brain being involved.
How does this work?
By not thinking, by keeping the words flowing, you are letting your right brain and unconscious mind do most of the work. They created the original dream so they know what these symbols mean for you. They will reveal. You will be surprised.
Jane Teresa Anderson
